Development of a Humour Styles Questionnaire for Secondary and Higher Education Environments, and Exploration of How Educators Use Humour

Humour is reported to impact areas of students’ educational experiences, including their relationships, learning, wellbeing, and the classroom environment. However, there is a lack of focus on the effect of different humour styles. It is therefore crucial to understand how these humour styles are used and the effects on students to reduce the risk of negative outcomes and increase the probability of positive outcomes for students. This thesis aimed to investigate the use of different humour styles in secondary and higher education environments.

The first study was a scoping literature review that aimed to identify how and why teachers are reported to use humour and the current understanding of the effect of humour on students’ educational experiences. After systematic searches and screening of studies a narrative synthesis was conducted. The findings suggested that despite frequent use of self-report scales there was a lack of a valid, reliable and comprehensive teacher humour style questionnaire. Therefore, subsequent online scale studies were conducted to develop a secondary level scale using an exploratory factor analysis, and higher education scale using a confirmatory factor analysis. These included eight humour factors representing different humour styles and had good internal validity and reliability.

A qualitative study using interviews, observations, the secondary level scale, was conducted exploring how and why teachers’ use humour using a thematic analysis. Five analytical themes were developed to explore why teachers’ used humour in the classroom, which revealed both perceived benefits to the students’ experiences and wellbeing, and the teachers’ wellbeing. Finally, online survey studies were conducted, exploring the relationship between the eight humour styles and individual differences. These were analysed using t tests and multiple regression analysis. Gender, personality traits, class size, age, teaching hours, and academic level were identified as factors related to the use of humour styles.

The studies outlined address the lack of a valid and reliable teacher humour styles questionnaire from previous research by developing new scales for secondary and higher education environments. Aggressive humour was redefined as sarcastic and personal characteristic humour, helping to explain contradictions within previous research. Self-enhancing humour was redefined as enhancing humour to allow for the inclusion of humour to improve students’ wellbeing. Finally, the research reported provides an understanding of how individual differences, are related to educators’ humour styles. Future research should develop a student preferences humour scale and an understanding of the actual effect of teachers’ humour on students’ educational experiences.